Quarter 1 / Observations #2

Oct.23,2011
Stargazing (8 P.M. - 10P.M)
We started off the night by looking up into the southwestern sky and observing Scorpius just above the horizon with Sagittarius pouring out over it. Using the binocular stand, we could observe a plethora of stars that ran through both constellations and comprising the Milky Way galaxy. Directly west, Delphinus and Job’s Coffin were visible over the shell parking lot. Opposite of Delphinus, lying in the eastern sky was Jupiter and Hercules. Jupiter had four moons that were visible through the telescope along with two weather bands going horizontally across its surface. Shortly thereafter we observed the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting above us at about 8:20 P.M; as the satellite came closer to us it got gradually brighter, peaked in brightness when it was directly overhead, and gradually decreased in brightness as it orbited away from us and through the constellation Pegasus. Approximately five satellites were spotted that evening: two on the binocular stand and three with the naked eye. Using a green laser pointer, we proceeded to star hop and identify constellations. We identified Cepheus by first finding Polaris in the northern sky and then we spotted Cassiopeia - which looks like a “lazy M or W” - in order to find Andromeda. Throughout the night we constantly referred back to Deneb, Altair, Vega, and even Alberio to find the Summer Triangle and identify the different Messier objects within their respective constellations. For example, in the constellation Lyra there were two binary star systems, one was vertically oriented and the other was horizontally oriented in the nighttime sky. Other observations include Fomalhaut, Ophiuchus, Serpens, Scutum, the Coathanger cluster(in Vulpecula), and Sagitta. Also the sky around Pine View was determined to be forth magnitude. The stargazing group collectively saw a meteor flash by at approximately 8:45 P.M. I personally managed to catch a glimpse of a meteor as it briefly streaked across the sky just as we were getting ready to begin observations.